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Or was it something more?

I could feel my skin tingling, belly tightening so hard it was almost painful, as I gripped his shoulders. His cock was going so deep, his fingers were so hard it was making my hips ache, and still I wanted more.

“I love you,” he groaned against my lips, his tongue in my mouth, and then his fingers hit where our bodies met, and I began to shake, my thighs trembling, my heavy breasts full to bursting as my release hit me, milk leaking down my breasts and rolling in rivulets down to my belly.

I cried out, gasping my pleasure as I felt that wet gush of his release in me, cock twitching as he pumped jet after jet into my trembling cunt.

My body felt wrung out and limp as he carefully lowered me to cradle in his arms, kissing my face all over.

Then Étienne dug around in his pocket. His face was streaked with blood but there was the strangest mix of hope and joy in his expression.

As I blinked away the last waves of my orgasm, he held out my wedding ring to me.

“I beg you, Léonie, love of my life, light of my heart. Please forgive me. Please come home.”

CHAPTER 25

Léonie

Once upon a time, I fell in love. . .

He was the kind of man you couldn’t take your eyes off.

He was the kind of man you couldn’t fall out of love with. . .

Or could you. . .

“I do not want a ring you put on another woman’s finger,” I spat, shoving his hand away so hard that the ring clattered onto the floor.

“You went too far when you played happy families with her. I can’t wear that ring again! It disgusts me.”

Fists clenched, I turned away angrily.

Had it been a massive mistake to have sex with him? Even if nothing about the carnal, raw magnetism that pulled us together had changed—that didn’t mean I was going to change my mind. Or forgive him.

I was here at his home because he’d blackmailed me into it, after all.

And trying to give me a ring that had even briefly been on that dead woman’s fingers? That showed he didn’t understand anything. That he couldn’t comprehend the hurt he had caused or how much he would have to work to rebuild my trust.

Arms folded tight against my chest, I flicked my hair angrily back in his face and made to leave.

Étienne bent and picked up the ring, then a strong, tanned arm snaked around my waist, the color deep against my pale, freckled skin as he pulled me back onto his lap.

“It’s not the same ring.”

“It’s not?”

I gasped as he turned it around. Instead of my old diamond ring, which had been part of the marriage negotiations, this one was formed to look like a beautiful mountain laurel flower, each delicate petal carved from different pink stones.

He turned it this way and that, each side sparkling with the loveliest shades of pink, going from pale softness to a bright floral pink, then a deep almost scarlet color.

“How—” I began.

The effect was stunning, almost absurdly delicate and beautiful.

For a moment my finger ached. Wanting that ring. Knowing it belonged to me.

“There’s nothing I won’t do for you,” he rasped. “Nothing I won’t get to show you how much I care.”